


the long way, you and desert dry

by sunshowerst



Series: danny and rusty and no one else on earth [9]
Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Driving, Friends to You Are My Home, Injury, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29969754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshowerst/pseuds/sunshowerst
Summary: Danny drives and Rusty sleeps, and such ventures to the outskirts of the norm never go unpunished by the universe.
Relationships: Danny Ocean & Rusty Ryan, Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan
Series: danny and rusty and no one else on earth [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128335
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	the long way, you and desert dry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cleardishwashers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/gifts).



> you know who this is for! cleardishwashers o ao3 the sun revolves around you.
> 
> i also did write the tess pov one i just need a bit of time to refine it because tess deserves it

Danny hates driving more than he hates anything else currently on Earth and below it. 

Chartered private planes were better, and he got to do other things comfortably on them, and even if Rusty calls him old for it all the while he'd still rather be sinking into cloud-soft white leather and kicking his bare feet up on mahogany and getting an assortment of glares from aforementioned glass house resident, than driving. 

Hell, he'd rather be back in-

No, he wouldn't. Never again. So maybe he hates East Haven more than he hates driving.

He doesn't let it show all too much. It would be somewhat self-centered after all, to whine about being stuck behind the wheel, peeling down through the dead of the desert and expecting to do so for at least two more days if they're - he's, persistent to get this over with quicker. 

Cause they'd have taken the plane but Rusty was injured, before, and Stan barely agreed to let him off the bed if he promises he won't be on any flights for at least three weeks. Which they haggled down to two, well, Rusty haggled it down to two and when Danny was about to ask why Rusty was so keen on taking flights sooner he caught the back of this _look_ that was on its way from Rusty's face, and froze. 

Rusty looked guilty cause Danny would have to drive them home, instead of flying. Rusty _felt_ guilty for getting injured on a job Danny called him for, that he flew back from Asia for, and that was something. He doesn't grip the wheel nearly as hard as he wished to. 

Doesn't turn the radio off either - the pleasent buzz of droney voiced announcements and the one radio station in all of midwest that was graceful enough to play Cab Calloway in the middle of high August seemed too much of a good thing to pass up on so easily. 

Quietly he acknowledges on their scoreboard that Rusty was right about stealing a car for its aerial, even if its a Dodge, which was probably the actual reason Rusty - ever the sick and twisted when it came to humor - wanted it.

He chews on the peppermint gum provided by the ex-owner and resists the urge to roll the window down to get at least something out of this, because one look at Rusty - a refresher more than a reminder - reinstates on its own how badly he needed this bit of sleep. 

He was curled up impossibly in his seat with his left leg the only outstretched part of him, the slight bump on his thigh under the thin silk suit pants the reason for it. 

It could've been worse, of course. Could've shattered his femur if it went any more inward than it did. And the bruise all around the red and mangled open skin suggested it was close to that, when he first saw it and resisted the urge to break their one serious rule of not killing anyone. It easily could've meant three months of being holed up in Stan's house and losing his mind because he'd be equal parts concerned and bored, and Rusty would apparently feel guilty about it. 

Again, Danny really had to ask about that, because maybe there was mercy to be had and it was just the politeness that was rubbing off on him from his prolonged stay in Tokyo. 

"Fuck," he says quietly when the stupid car beeps over critically low fuel, dramatically, it wasn't even that depleated-

"'s okay." A yawn. "I'm thirsty anyways."

Danny makes a mental note to sink the car into the Atlantic ocean for waking him up. 

"Sorry--"

"Save it." Rusty blinks a couple times, twisting and turning in his seat till he was satisfied with his assessment of the nowhere they were currently in. "There should be a gas station a few kilometers down this way. Say three. We'll make it."

Danny stares at him for a second, and avoids a head-on collision with a tumbleweed by a hair's width. Rusty blinks the last of his sleep away, recaps the bottle. 

"What? Oh, right. One-point-eight--" 

"But how do you know--" 

"It's five in the afternoon," he says after a few seconds in an even voice, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and sighs when Danny rightfully doesn't react. "The sun's to our left. It was nine when we headed out, I fell asleep around two-forty, and _you're_ the one driving, meaning we're--" 

"I _know_ where we are, Rusty. I was just--"  
"Impressed?" 

"...maybe."

Rusty nods, and shifts slightly. Danny hates that he has to listen for it. 

"It doesn't hurt." A sharp look to his right doesn't cost him anything this time around. "Fine. It doesn't hurt that bad. I could even--" 

"Absolutely not. And I know what you're gonna say, but that was different. We were both injured then."

"Huh. But still--" 

"What?" 

Rusty shakes his head, staring into the far off ahead, and Danny defeatedly agrees with the sentiment. 

There _is_ a gas station roughly two miles down the way. Danny was impressed, despite knowing and witnessing more and better. And Danny missed out on this, for a while. He doesn't- can't stay in the car for even a second longer than necessary, and doesn't know why he thinks he can hide anything from someone who needlessly memorized the layout of US highway maps and places of interest adjacent to them. 

He helps Rusty get up from his seat and leaves him by the car to stretch out and shake off the position that was only intended for meter sticks and Amazing.

He can't say he's at all surprised when he comes upon him tossing the car keys up and down when he walks out of the shop, bringing nothing but the bought and paid for fourteen types of counter-side chocolate bars to this fight. 

"You and I both know I don't need keys to--" 

"Danny."

"What do you want me to say? You're-- he stabbed your leg, Rusty."

"That was an oversight. On my part."

"I called you to--" 

"I didn't have to come."

Danny stares at him blankly. 

"Right. Maybe. But I didn't have to stick around."

That much was true. Much like Danny ending up some degree of detained every time he didn't was true. But it only made his point clearer. 

"What do you want _me_ to say?" 

"Why you're acting like you're the one that called." 

Rusty looks away and Danny wants to feel triumphant, but the way his jaw is working around nothing doesn't quite let him to. And then he tosses the keys back to Danny who catches them, more from twenty odd years of muscle memory than any real preparedness. And they do say it takes two to, well, do just about anything. 

"You don't get to--" 

"Unlock the car, Danny," Rusty says evenly, cooly, and if Danny didn't know him he'd do much more than falter at that. 

"Just what is the matter with you?" 

Rusty looks at him again like he likely did when he tried to explain his navigation voodoo minutes ago. Danny doesn't relent, because it felt like everything depended on him standing his ground when Rusty couldn't stand proper. 

Rusty, who sighs like he read his mind just then, and didn't want to agree. 

"This was supposed to be easy. Everything else is difficult and a drag. But now I got myself stabbed, we're four days delayed cause you have to drive and now we're arguing in the--" 

"Rus."

"--and I couldn't even-" he stops for a millisecond when he shifts his weight and Danny hears the wince where he supresses it, and the earlier present guilt is all up and back and now unmoving. Fuck. 

"I'm sorry, I completely--" 

"--not your fault, just help me get- yeah. Thanks."

Danny circles the car and sits behind the wheel again and supresses his everpresent urge to bang his head against it when both their doors shut. 

"I wouldn't either. Think the store clerk had enough of us already."

"She has a shotgun too, you know." 

"Sawed off?" Rusty inquires, suddenly interested. 

"What kind of movies did you--" 

"Bad ones." Rusty shudders for added effect, and Danny does all this: rolls his eyes, starts the car, passes him a Mars bar straight from his pocket, all with a familiar, ingrained uninterrupted flow of movements that ends with his other hand on the wheel as well. 

Huh. 

"Danny--" He begins, after a long moment. 

"I missed--" 

"Me too."

"Then why did--" 

"Because I don't want you to-" Rusty starts, then stops. Then decides for the both of them that he'd had enough. "This was always supposed to be easy. Natural. Like passing the--" 

"Yeah." 

"But I got, you know. All this. And the plans came in late. We didn't even get to get properly drunk over them. I don't think I even drank at all, and I'm--" 

"Rus."

"--didn't think he would actually--" 

"Rus," Danny begins, louder this time. Calloway dies off with a crackled wail by the time Rusty sighs to resign from whoever he thought he was advocating for, or against. _You don't have to make me feel at home here,_ he thinks when he looks at him, and he gives a small smile. That at least still worked easily. 

"I do work in accommodation, you know."

"I don't care that I have to drive. Or that it went bad. I'm not going to leave just because it- oh."

Rusty doesn't say anything to that, which might as well have been a novel, and Danny swears his fingers were usually much more quick to open a Mars bar of all things.

Danny doesn't say anything either, for now, because this was a crossroads. Not for what he'll do, but for how he'll go about it. And Rusty is still trying and not trying to open the chocolate bar. Ever the sick and twisted, Danny thinks to himself, and almost chokes on the fondness in his lungs and nearly sacrifices a scorpion upon the asphalt and the feeling. 

"This is nothing like that."

Rusty shrugs. Not good enough. Danny tries again, two roadside signs later. _Convince me._

"I've won what I wanted then. It didn't pan out." _Not when you weren't in it._

"What was the second time, then?" Rusty asks and acknowledges Danny's second marriage for the first time, at least with words. And despite all odds it's the easiest turn Danny'd faced in his life because for once, it was him that sat to think it through. Not that the government didn't force him to be seated all that time. 

"I thought I wanted to have a- permanent place."

"Yeah?" Rusty asks and his voice sounds... Danny pulls over, has to pull over, because he plans to get them back to Massachusetts alive. 

"Yeah. I still want it, Rus."

Rusty grins after a while of them looking at each other, and a few seconds added to the while he's offering Danny the second bite of the melted chocolate bar that he refuses. 

"Well?" Danny asks when they're back on the road again and Rusty is decidedly done licking his fingertips clean and stretching back into a yawn. 

"As long as you don't try and paint me."

"Rusty."

"And doesn't that make me a trailer?" 

"Rus."

"I know, Danny. And I missed you too."

"You're just saying that to get the other thirteen chocolate bars." 

Rusty shrugs, smiling, and Danny looks away and keeps his eyes on the road and his expression muted as he pats his left pocket. "Seven? How did..." 

"Well--"

"Yeah, no." He concedes, waving the explanation off and as Rusty shifts in his seat again to assume a knife wound friendly position, he remembers. "And it's not gonna take me four days."

Rusty hums a quasi-affirmative noise, and Danny doesn't have to turn to know his eyes are closed. He'd better start looking for a good radio station again. He should've brought the MP3 player even if all the songs were Basher's picks. 

"You're right. Five at the least."

"Or, we'll be in Massachusetts when you wake up." 

"...What exactly did you put in that Mars bar?"

**Author's Note:**

> home is where the heartburn is you know
> 
> comments/kudos/suggestions as always welcome & appreciated more than you know
> 
> also. figured i should start explaining my story titles if anyone is wondering. home and dry means getting somewhere safely or being safe. the long way is usually said as 'the long way home'. i replaced home with 'you' because the story is in danny's pov, and in his vocabulary the second person pronoun is reserved for one person.


End file.
